This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

spp

The sunday is a behemothic nuclear fireball that, as a rule, melts anything that comes shut. Yet, in that location'due south a NASA plan to send a spacecraft into the sun's upper temper to get a closer look at it and gather data on coronal mass ejections (CME). The spacecraft is called Solar Probe Plus (SPP), and information technology's being designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. If all goes as planned, it'll launch in 2018.

A coronal mass ejection is oft associated with solar flares, but the 2 phenomena are distinct. A solar flare is simply an increase in brightness on the dominicus that is often accompanied by a prominence — a giant loop of plasma that leaps off the surface, but somewhen settles back downwardly. If there is a large release of plasma from the lord's day into space, we call that a coronal mass ejection.

CME's have scientists worried because the charged particles tin can be extremely unsafe for Earth. A coronal mass ejection pointed at us can knock out satellites and cause harm to electrical systems on the basis. Astronauts on the ISS could be seriously afflicted past a CME without the protection of Earth's magnetic field as well.

Afterward its launch in 2018, SPP will make its way to the sun and complete 24 orbits equally it studies the star. It volition conduct seven flybys of Venus as it orbits the sun over the course of vii years. Each Venus laissez passer will lower its orbit over the sun, somewhen bringing it within 4 million miles (6.iv million kilometers) of the surface. That puts it inside the sun'due south corona, where no other human being made object has ventured.

Anti-Ram-Facing-View

Scientists working on the probe estimate it will need to withstand temperatures in excess of 2500 degrees Fahrenheit (1371 celsius). The probe will be equipped with a 4.v-inch-thick carbon composite shield to go along itself absurd. While it'due south within the corona, SPP will endeavour to reach three main objectives. It volition endeavour to trace the flow of energy that leads areas of the corona to rut upwardly. Information technology will too detect the structure of magnetic fields and plasma currents as the source of the solar wind. Lastly, SPP will gather information on the movement of energetic particles in the solar current of air like electrons, protons, and helium nuclei.

The hope is a better understanding of mechanisms in the corona will allow scientists to predict the occurrence of dangerous solar phenomena like coronal mass ejections.